Lily Fairchild. Don Gutteridge
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And in two weeks, the feat was accomplished. As Mrs. Templeton never tired of saying, “the girl’s a natural!” Natural or not, it took some practice to disentangle the intricacies of the quadrille, galop, valse, polka and inevitable lancers. While Mrs. Templeton played a suitable tune on the piano, Mayor Templeton would serve as Lily’s partner, then hop to one side and quickly demonstrate what the other couples of the quadrille would be up to – often forgetting where he was or two-stepping inadvertently into the galop. In the waltz, His Worship was superb, guiding Lily and his ample paunch around the parlour in mutual three-quarter delight. Lily could not help humming, though it was apparently a form of impoliteness.
“Let your feetfeel the music,” Mrs. Templeton said, pouncing on the keys.
“But she is, sweet, she is; her whole body is,” puffed the Mayor, sensing the triphammer pulse of the tune through Lily’s right hand and the small of her back, and marveling at the weightless power of her presence. She will do well, this one, he thought. Suddenly, he loved his wife more than ever.
A few minutes before the appointed hour, the crowd lining both sides of the cleared right-of-way that cradled the tracks heard the approaching sound of the first locomotive in Lambton.
A low thunder of iron-on-iron gained volume and pitch, scattering wildlife through the shuddering swamps and fernshaws. Trunk and bole and root quivered like tuning forks in its wake. Just before the track’s curve at the edge of town, the engine whistle shrieked steam to announce its imminent arrival. Two thousand waiting citizens responded as one: a raucous, antiphonal cheer went up, followed by a second when the first smoke was spotted above the bush, then the chuffing stack. A whoop of self-congratulatory joy rose when the entire juggernaut hove into full view and, at speeds only dreamt of, roared past their applause and braked towards a stop. The assembled dignitaries dropped all pretense of disinterest.
Before the station – an imposing, pseudo-gothic structure of stone, red brick and elm – #52 engine, bearing the name Prosperoin gold against a fern-green skin, skidded to a halt with a hiss and a screech that stunned the worshippers: a keening skirl of a cry like that of a disembowelled recruit at Culloden. The Great Western Railway had arrived.
The passenger coaches debouched onto the freshly planked platform several squads of V.I.P.’s, some genuine, many self-appointed. The forward platoon consisted of Sir Oliver Steele, vice-president of the Great Western, with Lady Marigold Steele, and the Mayor of London, trailed by four councilors and their wives. Behind them, with a scandalously blonde female anchored to his right arm, came a handsome figure soon identified as the notorious roué of London and Toronto, Stanley R. Dowling, known abroad as “Mad Cap.” Not only had he debauched a succession of willing virgins, but it was rumoured he had been drummed out of the militia. For reasons no respectable person could understand or commend, he had, from obscure origins, made his way up in the world and in a society whose standards were obviously rotting at the core. He was said to have been made a director of the Great Western and to have speculated recklessly on local railway ventures that left himrich and the townsbankrupt.
Lady Steele held Lily’s fascination as the official party slow-marched towards Mayor Templeton’s group, behind which the lady folk of the town were expectantly assembled. She was several decades younger than her be-knighted husband, with fresh-scrubbed skin and sloe eyes bearing a look of distant, wry amusement. Dowling, Lily noted, smiling publicly at his tow-haired escort, but cast sidelong glances at Lady Steele, who absorbed them, unreturned. It was clear that Dowling would be lord of any domain he chose to occupy: with his jet-black hair, brows and side-whiskers, eyes bitumous and smouldering; carriage regal and never without purpose. He was a man in his prime, with poise and presence. His dowry: the future.
As His Worship shook hands with the worthies from London and Toronto, the band struck up a martial air and the crowd, crushing in around the train and dignitaries, applauded wildly. If they had any doubts about the intrusion of railways into their lives, they did not express them on this occasion. As the formal introductions and exchange of greetings were taking place, Lily looked anxiously at the throng of faces about her. Finally, she spotted them. Chester grinned and waved excessively; Bridie, apparently, did not see her.
A dinner was served at six o’clock for the more than one hundred and fifty well-wishers and their guests ‒ all men. In 1858 and for some years to come, the wives and darlings of celebrities did not grace the tables of such public colloquies. Hence, the intelligence emanating from the event had to be derived from second-hand sources. Fortunately the ladies had access to a number of impeccable, though not coincident, accounts of what transpired. Since this was the largest dinner ever held in Port Sarnia, the only room big enough to accommodate the guests and their appetites was in the Orange Lodge near the St. Clair Inn. Thus it was that Mrs. Josephine Salter, whose kitchen was called upon to cater the meal, was able to store up enough gossip to feed her habit for a year; likewise, at a lower level, for Char Hazelberry whose own kitchen provided the tarts and trifle, and who luckily was required to bring along her best girls, Betsy and Winnie, to aid in the service thereof and in the dissemination of news thereafter.
No less than eighteen toasts were proposed and replied to, with claret for the elect and water for the saved. His Worship led the way with one to the Queen Herself, followed rapidly by those to the president of the Great Western, his board of directors, his English backers and the British Parliament. A toast was even offered to the president of the United States of America and responded to at length by the mayor of Port Huron, Michigan, whose country also had a stake in these enterprises. According to the report in The Observerhis American Worship emphasized that two things were held in common by both republicans and monarchists: a tradition of fair play and justice as well as an unshakeable belief in progress, a progress rendered visible and measurable by the march of iron through the untracked wastes of the continent. Indeed, he concluded, the password of both great nations was identical: onward. The applause was deafening. Lily heard it, sitting in her room with Bonnie and Mrs. Templeton fussing over her with pins and thread, and thinking only of Bridie there at the station in the midst of such commotion, staring at nothing.
The ball, held in the concourse of the new station, began at nine in the evening and through its twenty-two dances endured until almost three in the morning. The town band of Goderich, which had come down by steamer in the afternoon, provided a passable imitation of its betters at Osgoode in Toronto. The gentlemen of Port Sarnia – attired in the severe, black formality of the period – offered a striking contrast to the uninhibited extravagance of the wives and young ladies. All agreed that it was a heaven-blessed sight to see against the drab umbers of late autumn such butterfly hues as danced in the gowns of the weaker sex. The only exceptions, on the stronger side, were a handful of elder townsmen who had dusted off their faded militia uniforms from the time of the rebellion, and five young gentlemen from London, three of them in the scarlet-gold-and-white of the British regular and the other two in the blue tunics of the new militia unit just formed in Middlesex.
Mrs. Templeton, flush with excitement and her first sip of French champagne, taxied up to Lily and said, “It’s filled already, pet. They saw you in the promenade and near trampled me to death to sign up.” She was waving Lily’s dance-card which was already two-thirds filled with local worthies and beaux and, as she called them, “regrettable necessaries,” plus “several of the nicest catches from London.”
Lily, too, had been keeping a watch for desirable partners. She saw Lady Marigold in earnest conversation with Sir Oliver; nearby, Mad-Cap Dowling was chatting animatedly with one of the smooth-cheeked young soldiers, but managing all the same to cast little semaphores of affection towards the dark lady. She inclined her ringlets only slightly in his direction. It was during such an exchange that Lily noticed for the first time one of the two militiamen standing beside Dowling. Next to the regulars and to Dowling himself, the young corporal certainly seemed nondescript: he was of medium height, his hair a sandy tint the face beardless but for a thin moustache, fine-boned, housing two eyes that darted about like curious bluebirds avid for the high air. She could see him straining to fill out his tunic, to accommodate its projection of power, but there was an insecurity and a restlessness in the very way he stood with his weight on one foot and his hands fretting for a place to